


Sit With Me

by IriSelkie



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Non-canon Thirteenth Doctor and post-Missy Master, Other, Spoilers for The Doctor Falls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-22 03:57:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11372085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IriSelkie/pseuds/IriSelkie
Summary: MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE DOCTOR FALLS(you've been warned)(this is a fixit fic for one aspect of the episode)





	1. Chapter 1

_After all, they were Koschei the Deathless._

For a moment, Missy had thought the Master had actually done it. If the Doctor wasn’t the one to kill her, the only other acceptable option was the Master, even if it wasn’t ideal. She wouldn’t have been satisfied with any other situation. 

But she knew better. 

She and her past selves had spent their lives defying death, continuing to exist despite impossible odds, just to spite the universe. She was the _Master_ of death, and no matter how angry her past self was, she knew that would always be at their core. The Master, if nothing else, was a survivor, and nothing would ever take that away.

So when the regeneration finally came, it was not a surprise. The Master had done something with his laser screwdriver to delay it somehow, to make her think she was dead, but he couldn’t hold it off forever. The idea of dying terrified them both, and Missy knew that somewhere, deep down, the Master wanted what she had. He wasn’t there yet, and she knew it would take time. But when it came down to it, Koschei wanted to stand beside Theta Sigma. They could have what they had lost, even if it was only for a little while.

It was explosive this time, and when the Master - or Missy again? It was hard to tell directly after a regeneration - came to, there were more than a few leveled trees. When things became more coherent, Missy deduced that she was, in fact, a woman again. She couldn’t remember if she had ever regenerated while feeling any sort of hope before, and it was a strange feeling. She wasn’t sure if it was good or bad yet. 

After a few moments, she realized that the leveled trees were not, in fact, because of her regeneration. They stretched as far as the eye could see, and recent memories began to trickle back into her mind. There were Cybermen. Had he blown them up? Someone must have. She walked through the wasteland, looking for any sign of the Doctor, or even Bill or Nardole, but there was no one to be seen. Either they had all been obliterated, or the Doctor had managed to save them all somehow. Missy put a hand to her face, and when she pulled it away, there were ashes. Maybe the explosion had triggered the regeneration. She wondered how long she would have laid there if it hadn’t happened.

She decided it was pointless to think about. She was alive, and now, she had to find a way out of here.

* * *

By the time Missy had managed to escape from that Rassilon-forsaken ship, she had had far too much time to think. She had come to realize that from the Doctor’s perspective, she had reassured him she was on his side, only to run off with her past incarnation. More than anything, she possessed a burning desire to rectify this. She didn’t expect him to believe her, after everything that had happened, but she wanted to at least try. She had had a taste of being close to her old friend again, and as always, it was like an addiction. She would always go back for more. 

When she found the Doctor, however, it wasn’t the right moment to step forward. He was so distraught that he didn’t notice her, and to her surprise, someone else she recognized stepped forward through the snow to greet him. She knew right then that it wasn’t the right time, and that she would have to find him later in his timestream. She turned the other direction and strode back through the snow, but not before taking one last look.

Oh, how she missed that old face.

_Until next time, Theta._

* *  *

By the time Missy found the Doctor again, her vortex manipulator was wearing thin, and she had managed to secret herself onto Gallifrey and steal another TARDIS. She would have thought their security would be better by now, because it had been as easy as ever. Then again, Rassilon was likely too busy tooting his own horn above ground to care about what was happening underground. She spit on a sign with Rassilon’s name on it and then left, catapulting the TARDIS back into the Time Vortex. 

Missy had no real way of tracking where the Doctor was, so she used a combination of instinct and finding where there was trouble. It took her a few tries to get it right, but after about five near-disasters, she finally found somewhere the Doctor seemed to be. The location had given her pause, because there wasn’t any trouble going on here, but the TARDIS was giving an indicator of a two-hearted being here, and she’d be damned if it wasn’t the Doctor. 

When she exited the TARDIS, the first thing she saw was a woman sitting alone on a rocky cliff, staring out over this planet’s sea. She frowned for a moment, wondering if the Time Lady in question was someone else, but then she remembered what she was. It was easy to forget she was a woman sometimes, and just because she hadn’t seen the Doctor like that in a while, didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. Now that she was almost sure the person was him - her, rather - she found herself afraid to speak. So she stood and watched for a moment, wondering when the woman would acknowledge her. Her TARDIS was silent, but there was no doubt a Time Lord wouldn’t have sensed one materializing nearby. Finally, the Doctor spoke, and Missy felt a strange mix of guilt and elation. 

“Missy.” The Doctor’s voice was tired, tinged with sadness, and it made Missy want to run away. She stayed where she was, however, forcing herself to stand there, to make up for walking off with the Master. It had been necessary, but it had all gone wrong, and from the Doctor’s perspective, she had deserted her. 

“Doctor.” Missy had to keep herself from calling her Theta, knowing that whatever closeness they had had, they had lost it after the Cybermen disaster. There was a long silence, and then Missy made herself walk toward the Doctor, standing a few meters away, not daring to get any closer. 

“Can we talk?” Missy said, hating how vulnerable she sounded. The urge from her past selves to taunt and threaten the Doctor wasn’t quite buried away, and she bit her tongue to keep from letting it out. The prospect of being close to the Doctor again filled her with a wild sort of fear, and she had always reacted to it with bravado and cruelty, anything to keep the Doctor from knowing how deeply he affected her. The Doctor was silent for a while, and Missy wondered if she was ignoring her. Then, finally - 

“Sit with me.” 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“I killed him for you.” 

Of all the things to come out of Missy’s mouth, that was  _ not _ what the Doctor had expected. She was trying to keep her incredible relief that Missy had survived to herself, but that made her look at the other Time Lady. Logic told her that she should be proud - she had changed Missy enough that Missy had stayed on her side. But she had driven Missy so far that she had killed her past self, and the Doctor felt a twist of guilt instead, even though it had been necessary. The Doctor floundered for a moment, having no idea what to say.

“I thought you had gone off with him,” she said finally, returning her gaze to the sea. Missy was too hard to look at right now. Her face was passionate, remorseful, desperate. Most of what the Doctor could feel was numbness. Her own reckless actions had caused the deaths of Bill and Nardole, and had caused Missy to morph into something unrecognizable. 

“I know that’s what it looked like.” Missy sat down a ways away from the Doctor, curling her arms around her knees until she was compressed into a tight ball. Some things never seemed to change - the Master had never been a relaxed person, and the Doctor remembered that he seemed to shrink away and curl himself up when he was uncomfortable. The Doctor was silent, still trying to figure out what to say, and Missy spoke again.

“I lured him to me, and I slipped a knife in his side. He’ll regenerate into me when he gets to the bottom of the elevator.” Missy’s voice sounded hollow, and the Doctor felt another twist of guilt. There was no doubt that Missy’s past self had been malevolent, but this still disturbed her, and she couldn’t imagine what Missy might be feeling. 

“I’m glad you came back.” It felt paltry and useless in comparison to what Missy was telling her, but it was all the Doctor could manage. She wanted desperately to reach out to Missy, to hold her hand, but they weren’t quite there yet. Both of them were volatile, and the touch might set either of them off. 

“You’re  _ glad _ I came back? After what I did?” Missy looked at her now, and the Doctor forced herself to meet her gaze. It hurt to look at Missy, but the Doctor supposed she deserved it. 

“It was my fault we were there in the first place. I shouldn’t have pushed you, and it’s my fault all of them died.” It was an effort to keep her face emotionless. She remembered the steeliness her ninth incarnation had had and tried to see if she could call it up. It didn’t work very well. 

“But I  _ wanted _ this, Doctor. I wanted to be like you. I asked you for this, and I couldn’t do it.” Missy’s voice was a little ragged now, and the Doctor’s fingers dug into the ground, clenching at the grass for some kind of emotional release. 

“So this was wrong for both of us, then. It’s done nothing but damage.” The words came out of the Doctor’s mouth as a defense mechanism. She wanted Missy desperately to stand with her, to  _ stay _ , but after everything that had happened, that concept was even more terrifying than it had been before. Her mind seemed determined to sabotage any chance of it happening. Missy’s face hardened, and the Doctor wished she hadn’t said it.

“You told me hope was dangerous. I suppose I should have listened.” Missy stood up, and the Doctor followed suit as Missy walked down the cliff.

“I didn’t mean - “

“No, Doctor, it’s always been like this. I chase you, you say no. It will never be different.” Missy’s hand was poised over her concealed TARDIS’s door, but she was hesitating. The Doctor followed her down the slope, and this time, she didn’t keep her distance. She took the hand that was hovering over the TARDIS door, and for a moment, Missy looked like she might wrench her hand away and smack her. 

“What, would you like to keep me captive again?” There was more pain in Missy’s voice than malice, and the Doctor shook her head.

“No. I don’t want you to go, but I can’t stop you.” The Doctor paused. “I know that we are not okay, and I know that everything went horribly wrong. But I can’t lose you again.” The last sentence was quiet, and she was very glad that only Missy was around to hear it. She had not admitted to needing the Master so badly in a long time, and Missy’s expression was still wary. 

“So you’d just...let me live with you? No vault this time?” Missy frowned, but she lowered her hand away from the door. 

“No vault. All I ask is that you promise me that you’ll try to work this out with me.”  _ We were so close, Koschei. We were almost there.  _

“I will think on it.” Missy’s expression was still hardened, but now, the Doctor saw her hands trembling. “If I decide I want this, I will come back.”

The Doctor felt a mix of relief, terror, and hope, and this time, she couldn’t keep it from her face. Missy’s expression softened just a bit - but only a bit. She gave the Doctor a long look, and then her hand came up to the TARDIS door. Wordlessly, she slipped inside, and her TARDIS began to disappear. 

Later, in her own TARDIS, the Doctor was trying to force herself to accept that Missy had gone. She had offered Missy a choice, and Missy had said no. She wouldn’t try and restrain Missy again. Then, she caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye, and slowly, a potted plant began to appear in her TARDIS console room. The Doctor froze, her hand on her sonic screwdriver.

Missy stepped out from behind the plant, her expression guarded, but a little less unfriendly than last time. 

“If you keep me captive, it’s over. But for now, I will stay.”

 


End file.
